Love in the flesh

Catholics recite the creed at every Sunday Mass and solemnity. While the Apostle’s Creed is indeed a legitimate liturgical option, most parishes that I am aware of utilize the Nicene Creed, a longer and more detailed statement of faith than the one we recite at the start of the rosary. This ancient formula reminds us of what exactly we mean when we say “I believe,” and is an important manifestation of the unity of believers. Much has changed since the first few centuries after the Church’s birthday on Pentecost, but these words have not. If you want to know what it means to be Christian, at some point you must become familiar with them. A large chunk of the Nicene Creed is a detailed declaration of the divinity of Jesus. Arising out of controversies concerning the nature of Christ, the Nicene Creed makes a concerted effort to alert the one reciting it that Jesus is God. “Light from light, true God from true God, begotten not made … .” It is within this substantial second section that we are reminded that in the fullness of time, the Son of the Father “came down from heaven, and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and became man.” On most days on which we recite the Nicene Creed, these words are accompanied by a profound bow. It seems to me that this physical gesture is a reminder of the humility of God, who himself bowed low to become one of us. It is also a sign of the awesome mystery upon which we are invited to ponder — infinity dwindled to infancy. But on two days within the Church’s calendar, the believer is instructed not to bow for the words of the Incarnation but rather to genuflect. They are the feast of the Annunciation on March 25 and then, nine months later, on Christmas, Dec. 25. It makes sense that on these days our ritual gesture is a little bit different than on others — they are feasts of the Incarnation. Genuflecting is the same gesture we as Catholics use when we pass in front of the tabernacle, wherein God remains with us as he promised. We worship not just with our minds and souls but very much with our bodies. They are, after all, a kind of sacrament of our person. They are physical signs of invisible realties — not the totality of what we are, and yet the precise location or locus of our whole being. When you point to someone’s body, you are pointing at them, even as we acknowledge that there is so much more to them than flesh and blood. Our ritual gestures in the Mass, whether standing, sitting, bowing, genuflecting, processing, singing, speaking, eating and drinking — they all flow from a truth that we all know intuitively — we are bodily beings. It is right and just, therefore, to worship with our bodies. Love of neighbor is also a bodily thing. It cannot merely be kept inside the heart or in our thoughts. It must be shown in the flesh. It must be incarnated. It must be announced by the genuflection seen in lives of service and forgiveness and compassion. The Word of the Father, by becoming flesh, has entered into the whole mystery of being human, which includes the mystery of suffering and dying. Some of the more moving scenes of the Gospel to me are those in which Jesus reaches out to touch the sick and the suffering. He is not always content to merely speak his healing words. At times he is compelled to feel the suffering one against him, pressed against his own flesh. This sign of compassion and love would have been particularly striking to Christ’s contemporaries. The ancient world had strict laws regarding human touch and the dangers of familiarity with the sick and stricken, especially the leper. And yet Christ touches the one who is suffering, announcing to them that he is present and will not abandon them. So, too, it is in our own lives. We must also be willing to touch and to be touched by the other, to be affected and to feel their pain as best as we can. And to be present to the other in the flesh. Sin seeks to isolate and separate us. But love seeks communion, never just in theory or in speech but always in service and with the sacrament of the person that is the body — with our time, our sacrifices and our presence. May the truth of the Incarnation inspire us to love as we have been loved — in the flesh. Father Erickson is parochial vicar of the Cathedral of St. Paul in St. Paul and interim chairman of the Archdiocesan Liturgical Commission.